What Might Have Been

By Firerose
Page 2 of 4

(1-2)

When the anonymous message came I knew it was from Avon. No great deduction,
it would take someone with computer expertise to send a message lacking any
id trace, at least to my inexpert probings. I knew no-one else in that division,
no-one with need to contact me like this, anyway.

Remembering the dowdy feeling, I deliberately turned up at the central meeting
area still in my engineering coveralls. It was a suitably anonymous place to
meet, and one I used frequently for this purpose myself. I turned the corner
and there he was sitting alone at a table in the alcove by pillar X17 that the
message had described, nursing a very small coffee. In view yet inconspicuous.
Amusingly, while still in his habitual sleek grey, Avon had managed to dredge
something out of his wardrobe that did not proclaim his status quite so self-consciously.
Something that any Alpha might wear. Slumming it, are we? I had wondered
whether his motives for contacting me were sexual. Of course I had investigated
the man, listened to the interdivisional gossip -- of which there was plenty
-- and unearthed no evidence of women. Certainly no wife and devoted family.
Was this telling for someone of Avon's age and status? Homosexuality, like intercaste
mixing, was not exactly illegal but it was certainly not a matter on which polite
people wasted much thought.

I swiped my credit chit into the nearest refreshment station and picked up a
coffee and something large and sweet to pick at, then paused, looked around
ostentatiously. Luckily all the other tables approximated to full. Even in his
slumming-it outfit, Avon radiated sufficient Alpha exclusiveness that it would
be a brave man who sat at his table. I took a deep breath and seated myself,
avoiding his eyes and over-stirring my coffee.

'Understand, Blake,' he said, in that voice of his, so penetrating yet barely
above a whisper, 'if you so much as mention your little organisation
I will report you immediately.'

The venom he could invest in the word 'organisation' was frightening. I didn't
reply, and he went on, 'This is a dead spot in the surveillance network.'

Actually, our experience suggested that the surveillance receivers must be rather
inefficient at recording quiet conversations over the piped music that pervaded
all public areas of the Dome, although it was generally considered wise to face
away from them. There were examples of people who had been successfully convicted
based on conversations reconstructed from lip movements.

'If you're not interested...then why?'

'Curiosity. When one is accustomed to promotion-seeking sycophants, it is occasionally
refreshing to hear someone speaking an unrehearsed truth.' He favoured me with
another of those half smiles. 'I assume that you have a life aside from...?'

I was not so sure myself, but apparently I convinced Avon in the ten minutes
it took him to dispose of his miniscule coffee, sip by tiny fastidious sip.
All I could remember afterwards was that we had discussed music. Avon liked
the austere and abstract sounds of the Early Tonals, Jayess Bach and his imitators,
unsurprising for someone who chose to express himself on an ancient instrument
as obscure as the harpsichord. I preferred the richer, earthier passions of
the Mid-tonal period, rooted in the natural world and aimed at the common man.
Bate Hoven's 'Ode to Joy' had been adopted as an anthem by the Freedom Party
-- but of course that was something I could not tell Avon. We uncovered a shared
love of the rather unfashionable fusion of ancient and modern traditions that
critics called New Tonalism.

Did I say all I could remember? I lied. Avon's hands, their blunt fingers dwarfing
his coffee cup. Occasional snatched glimpses of his face. The intensity he lent
to every sentence. Avon was like no-one else I had ever encountered.

When the next communication arrived, couched in an invitation to a private viewing
of a new art exhibition which would never before have dropped my way, why did
I attend? No recruit for the cause here.

Perhaps it was simply that the invitation was perfectly chosen. A rich selection
of Dutch masters, usually housed in one of the north-western domes. A chance
to look at them with the tranquillity denied at a public exhibition. And a venue
so above reproach, so full of ambassadors, of politicians, of the higher echelons
of Space Command, that Avon could openly approach me bearing all the considerable
arrogance of his grade and position. We stood side by side, casually discussing
matters as trivial as the thickness of the paint in a portrait of an astronomer
by an artist I had never heard of before, while sipping a 25-year-old port that
caressed the nose and slipped down the throat with an aching smoothness. Avon
smilingly introduced me to anyone who dared to greet him. And, yes, it felt
good. Who cares if I wondered whether for Avon, I was almost the 'dissident
as fashion accessory'? Or even whether Avon got some kind of kick out of the
danger of it all? Just for once, the danger wasn't to me.

Afterwards, I told myself -- and all my Freedom Party associates who asked --
that talking to the great and the good, or rather the cynical and the corrupt,
of Federation society rated as potentially useful research. And I told them
-- but not myself -- that Avon might eventually prove a useful contact.

Next came a lunch invitation.

(1-3)

A dingy underground tunnel, uncompromisingly lit by fluorescent tubes that gave
a greenish cast to the all-too-meagre circle of faces gathered in front of me.
The tunnels were our favourite meeting place, deep under the Dome. Safe. They
formed part of the maintenance network for the ventilation system. One of our
number was a Beta-grade technician in the maintenance corps; persistent solvent
leaks from ageing pipework -- most of them genuine -- gave him continuous access
to the tunnel system. Relatively safe. Nowhere was truly safe now that the Freedom
Party had been outlawed. Meetings -- defined as the planned attendance of more
than six people -- had been declared illegal unless registered at least five
days in advance.

A recruitment meeting. Too few people; my rapid assessment suggested no Alpha
grades. Nothing new there. Of all our supporters, only two apart from Bran Foster
and myself were Alpha grade. We mainly recruited Beta-ones who thought they
should have been Alphas, and Beta-twos and -threes who coveted Beta-one status.
So few joined because they saw the system as a whole as unjust, without regard
to their place in it. Idealism was not selected for by Federation society. Of
the service grades, we had a few Gammas but virtually no Deltas. It was frequently
hard to persuade Deltas that there was a system at all, let alone that there
might be meaning in a revolution against it. In my experience, two or three
Deltas would agree with anything I said, while I was there -- and then you never
saw them again. The very anonymity that would make them so useful to the cause
also made it impossible to track them down in the ants' nest that was the Delta
levels. Addressing a large group of service grades they would simply ignore
the intrusion, and carry on their lives as if you were absent. In the long term,
improved education for the lower grades was essential, and of course that was
one of the core objectives that we campaigned over. But in the short term; well,
it was one problem we had never managed to solve. Just one of many, I suppose.

The theme of my address that particular evening: inequalities in the distribution
of wealth. I had to shout over the ever-present whirr of the ventilation fans
and the random shufflings of an audience unused to sitting on unheated concrete.
As usual, I started out with the raw facts: 10% Alphas absorbed almost 40% of
Dome resources. An Alpha-one team leader earned more in a month than a Gamma-three
cleaner earned in a year. No use even mentioning Deltas, at least not in a recruitment
talk: most Dome inhabitants, I'd found, chose to simply ignore their subterranean
existence. Almost on auto-pilot now, I knew exactly when to make the hand gestures,
when to look out at the audience in direct appeal. When to observe which of
those gathered in front of me seemed interested, which to consider cautiously
approaching afterwards. Also as usual, the idea of a redistribution of credits
and ration allocations to better reflect the individual's worth to society went
down well. I hated appealing to people's avaricious instincts, but Bran always
argued with his rather ruthless pragmatism that it was the only strategy that
worked reliably. We can work on their altruism once we've got their attention,
as he often put it.

The talk had largely been scripted by Bran, and several phrases in his first
draft led me to guess that my oldest remaining friend disapproved of my newest.
Bran wasn't here this evening, of course. As a routine precaution, we rarely
attended the same meetings, and recruitment meetings were a particularly high
risk. And even if he were here, Bran would never say anything directly. But
then he hardly needed to.

In the morning, I messaged Avon with apologies, explaining not untruthfully
that I was stuck with some engineering problem and a deadline. He sent back
simply, 'Bring it with you.'

And I did. So that, in between spoonfuls of bitter chocolate ice-cream, I was
explaining the six-dimensional vector equations that I was trying to minimise
-- or was it maximise? Avon asked what the equations represented, and I rather
half-heartedly explained that I was tasked with deriving the optimal array of
sensor devices for the chamber itself. He brought out a liquid-filled writing
device of a type that I had never seen before and started sketching on his paper
napkin. Approximately three minutes later, he had derived the set of field equations
that I had slaved over for weeks, and then said casually, 'The chambers you
are working with, they are open at the front? And the sensors are fragile?'
I nodded. 'Well then, the floor and one wall will be empty, so we can substitute
two dummy variables.' And then, still scrawling on the napkin, he showed me
how to use symmetry properties to solve the simplified vector equations.

Avon ordered a second serving of blackcurrant sorbet -- a reward perhaps? --
and leant back in his chair, relaxed, almost glowing. He was clearly at home
in this retro-style eating place, the dim cramped space dominated by a gigantic
and noisy machine that reminded me of 'images of an ancient steam locomotive
and appeared to dispense his favourite coffee. But it was not just that: I realised
suddenly that he loved to teach. I tried to apologise for my dullness but he
waved me silent, 'I may as well solve one trivial problem as another. The whole
matter-transmission project is futile. The fundamental problem of transmission
of living organisms will not be solved using current mathematical techniques.'

'Why do you stay, then?'

'I have yet to find a more interesting challenge.'

'What do you want from life?'

'To be so wealthy that no-one can touch me.'

'That's not an aim. You want freedom to enjoy the good things of life.'

He did not answer, nor did he comment on my use of one of the forbidden words.
Eventually he countered, 'And what do you want from life?' He caught my instinctive
glance at the ceiling, and added with an edge of sarcasm, 'I believe there are
no surveillance devices here.'

'Freedom for everyone to enjoy those good things.' A succinct summary of last
night's address.

'Your masses would not appreciate them.'

'At least they'd have a choice.'

'You would place choice for people without the intellect to comprehend what
you were offering them above order, progress, culture, education?' Avon sounded
more amused than angry. Apparently revolutionary politics in the abstract was
allowable, as long as I failed to mention any practical measures. Waving at
the two small gold-rimmed cups of dark coffee that had materialised at our table,
he added, 'And if the supply of coffee beans were restricted such that either
we could enjoy real coffee or everyone could enjoy slops I suppose that you
would prefer to drink slops.'

I imitated Avon in stirring in the froth and took a cautious sip of the stuff.
The caution was warranted -- the sensation was explosive. Dark, somewhat bitter
and wholly addictive, the taste bore absolutely no relation to the coffee that
came out of the canteen dispensers. Even in the Alpha canteens, which usually
boasted that their coffee was not synthesised.